Glen Cook Books in Order

Cook’s debut novel is a post-apocalyptic naval tale set in 2193, where a battered destroyer and its conscript crew sail under an all-powerful Political Office toward a ritual Gathering—an endless war against an unseen Enemy that may be more myth than reality.

The first Dread Empire novel introduces a world of petty kingdoms and deep sorcery, following a boy who witnesses his mother burned as a witch and grows into the mage Varthlokkur, whose attempts to control fate set larger forces in motion.

The third of the early Dread Empire novels brings long-simmering plots and wars to a bloody climax, tying off major arcs in Kavelin and beyond while hinting that neither empires nor sorcerers ever truly rest.

This omnibus gathers the first three Garrett novels—Sweet Silver Blues, Bitter Gold Hearts, and Cold Copper Tears—offering a single-volume introduction to the hardboiled private eye of TunFaire and his irreverent mix of mystery and magic.

Second in the original Dread Empire trilogy, this book continues the intertwined fates of Varthlokkur, the Mocker, Haroun, and Bragi Ragnarson as wars, wizardry, and shifting alliances strain the western kingdoms to the breaking point.

First in the Starfishers trilogy, Shadowline centers on the Storm family’s vendetta with the alien Sangaree as great private armies clash on Blackworld, a planet where a narrow habitable band—"the shadowline"—separates blazing desert from frozen night.

This middle volume pushes deeper into the Storm–Sangaree conflict as Mouse Storm and agent Moyshe benRabi pursue Starfisher harvestships and the living energy beings they protect, uncovering secrets that could upend interstellar travel and power.

The Starfishers trilogy concludes with a high-stakes mission to Stars’ End, a mysterious fortress bristling with automated defenses, where the Storms, their allies, and their Sangaree enemies race to unlock or survive the final secrets of the Starfish.

When invading armies destroy his home, young Gathrid flees into the wilderness and finds an ancient black sword that offers him vengeance at a terrible price, dragging him into wars and atrocities until he must decide whether to break free of its will.

Ordered to investigate a growing black fortress in the decaying city of Juniper, the Company uncovers a plot that could free the Dominator, while deserter Raven and the mute girl Darling pursue their own dangerous path toward prophecy.

The Black Company, last of the Free Companies of Khatovar, takes service with the Lady, ruler of a reviving evil empire, while company doctor Croaker records their compromises and campaigns in Annals that matter as much as any spell or sword.

Set centuries before the original Dread Empire trilogy, this prequel follows desert heretic El Murid as he survives execution, gains followers, and begins a holy war that will forge a new empire and reshape the western world.

Blending time travel, crime, and espionage, this novel links a 1975 St. Louis murder case, nineteenth-century Bohemia, and a dystopian future Prague, as a weary detective discovers that his investigation rubs against a secret program that can alter history itself.

Opening the Darkwar trilogy, Doomstalker introduces a harsh alien world ruled by silth witches and follows a young huntress drawn into their ranks, where she discovers both the reach of their power and the first hints of a looming northern invasion.

Told from the viewpoint of a civilian observer on a stealth attack craft, this military SF novel follows a climber ship as it stalks enemy convoys through "null" space, capturing the claustrophobia, boredom, and sudden terror of submarine warfare in deep space.

Hiding in the Plain of Fear, the Black Company now protects the White Rose against both the Lady and the awakening Dominator, marching toward a final showdown at the Barrowland where the fate of empire, rebels, and the Company itself will be decided.

The middle Darkwar book deepens the conflict as the newly risen witch challenges entrenched silth hierarchies and tries to prepare her world for external threats, even while political rivals see opportunity in every crack in the old order.

Continuing the story of desert prophet El Murid, this volume follows his rise from hunted heretic to empire-building Disciple in Hammad al Nakir, as his holy war brings order, bloodshed, and hidden manipulators to the fore.

The concluding Darkwar novel sees the alien world’s witch hierarchy and frontier clans forced to face the northern invasion head-on, as the once-outsider witch who rose from the margins must decide whether to preserve a broken order or remake it amid war.

Omnibus edition collecting The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and The White Rose, following an elite mercenary unit as it serves a dark sorceress, confronts the imprisoned Dominator, and is drawn into the prophecy of the reborn White Rose across a brutal northern war.

The long war against the Dread Empire flares again as visions, coups, and a newly chosen Deliverer stir Kavelin, Shinsan, and the desert alike, unleashing armies of the living and the dead in a struggle no king or wizard fully controls.

In his first recorded case, Garrett is hired by the family of an old army buddy to track down an heiress in a distant war zone, plunging him into vampire-ridden territory, old heartbreak, and a rescue mission that goes very wrong before it goes right.

King Bragi Ragnarson joins exiled princess Mist’s bid to retake her throne from the Dread Empire, even as his wizard Varthlokkur and spymaster Michael Trebilcock warn that the campaign could shatter Kavelin and set the stage for an even darker future.

Garrett is hired by a powerful sorceress’s household when her son is kidnapped, but ransom demands, hired killers, and family secrets make it clear that the real crime is much bigger than a simple snatch-and-grab.

A breathtakingly attractive woman brings Garrett what looks like a routine missing-person case, but it quickly escalates into murders, church politics, and a hunt for relics that several religions would kill to possess.

Far in the future, near-immortal warships called Guardships enforce a harsh peace across Canon Space, but rebellious Houses, resurgent alien warriors, and internal rot threaten that order, drawing clone soldiers, scheming aristocrats, and weary titans into a vast, slow-burning war.

An old army buddy asks Garrett to look into a slow death in a decaying mansion, and the case turns into a gothic tangle of ghosts, family curses, and long-nursed war crimes that refuse to stay buried.

After the northern wars, a shattered Black Company marches south under Croaker and the now-mortal Lady, searching for its legendary origin in Khatovar and becoming entangled in Taglios’s politics and a looming conflict with the inhuman Shadowmasters.

This spin-off follows ex-Company men, the White Rose’s followers, and a crew of small-time crooks as they chase and guard a silver spike that imprisons the Dominator, while armies, sorcerers, and old enemies scheme to seize its terrifying power.

In the conquered city of Qushmarrah, rival factions of occupiers, desert allies, and resistance fighters circle around the Tower of Fear, last stronghold of a slain god’s cult, as rumors grow that its sorcerous master might rise again.

Hired to find a young woman and a set of legendary grimoires known as the Book of Shadows, Garrett finds every power in TunFaire suddenly very interested in the same prize, and discovers that reading the books may be worse than losing them.

Separated from the Company after the disaster at Dejagore, Lady claws her way back to power by rebuilding Taglios’s army, even as Croaker is trapped by Soulcatcher and both are unknowingly drawn into the death cult of the goddess Kina.

Called in by the Watch to consult on a string of brutal murders, Garrett must track a killer who may not be entirely human, dragging him through cults, noble houses, and TunFaire’s ugliest alleys.

When the ancient sorcerer known as the Protector of Shasesserre is assassinated, his son Rider and a motley band of allies hunt the killer, uncovering a deeper plot by a rival wizard who plans to seize or destroy the entire city.

A glamorous client with a story full of holes hires Garrett to find her missing lover and lost fortune, pulling him into a maze of political blackmail, buried scandals, and an enemy who keeps rewriting the truth.

Minor gods hire Garrett to mediate their turf war over a derelict temple, but what looks like divine squabbling masks a scheme that could redraw TunFaire’s religious map and get a lot of mortals killed in the crossfire.

Narrated by standard-bearer Murgen, this volume loops through the siege of Dejagore and its aftermath, showing the Company hemmed in by enemies, betrayed by supposed allies, and haunted by visions that hint at deeper sorcery and a coming shift in the war.

Continuing the Glittering Stone arc, the Black Company fights across the plain of glittering stone toward Longshadow’s last fortress, while Murgen’s drifting perspective reveals gods, Taken, and Nyueng Bao intrigues tightening around Croaker and Lady.

Omnibus of Bleak Seasons and She is the Darkness, charting the Company’s siege at Dejagore, its uneasy alliance with Taglios, and the long, grinding struggle against Longshadow and Soulcatcher on and around the plain of glittering stone.

Garrett goes undercover to look into a human-supremacist group targeting mixed-blood citizens, stumbling into a plot that mixes political terror, family vendettas, and city-reshaping magic while the Dead Man pushes him to pick a side.

Years after most of the Company is trapped beneath the glittering plain, guerrilla leader Sleepy and a handful of survivors in Taglios steal forbidden magic and launch a desperate campaign to free their comrades and finally confront Soulcatcher and Kina.

The concluding volume of the original Black Company saga finds Croaker back as Annalist as the Company faces old foes and new godlike threats, fighting one last series of brutal campaigns that push them beyond prophecy and through the Shadowgates.

Strange visitors with impossible technology arrive in TunFaire and hire Garrett for protection, but every faction in the city wants a piece of them, turning a simple bodyguard job into a chaotic battle over secrets that could change the balance of power.

A hardcover omnibus that gathers Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel, and The Silver Spike, following the Black Company’s march south toward Khatovar, Lady’s brutal campaign against the Shadowmasters, and the spin-off tale of the silver spike that holds the Dominator.

In the opening Instrumentalities novel, mercenary commander Else Tage—soon to be known as Piper Hecht—kills what may be a god, drawing the attention of rival churches, hidden sorcerers, and inhuman powers that have grown used to ruling the night.

When a plague and an assassination plot hit TunFaire at the same time, Garrett is strong-armed into protecting a crime lord whose enemies are many and patient, forcing him to juggle quarantines, cults, and the city’s suddenly very busy secret police.

Now Captain-General of the Grail Empire’s armies, Piper Hecht fights crusades abroad and political wars at home, even as ancient sorcerer Cloven Februaren and the Instrumentalities of the Night pull him into conflicts that span centuries.

Hired to keep an ambitious theater project from coming apart, Garrett finds himself dealing with a haunted construction site, corrupt investors, and an infestation that may not be entirely human, all while his relationship with Tinnie grows more complicated.

As crusades splinter and gods maneuver in the shadows, Piper Hecht is pushed into even higher command and deeper intrigue, forced to decide which masters he truly serves while Instrumentalities and human fanatics alike try to turn the world into a battlefield.

Omnibus collecting Water Sleeps and Soldiers Live, chronicling the Black Company’s desperate bid to free comrades trapped beneath the glittering plain and the hard, bloody campaigns that carry the Annals to a hard-won, ambiguous peace.

An attack that nearly kills Garrett drags him into a case tied to his own tangled love life, with Furious Tide of Light, Tinnie, crime bosses, and the Civil Guard all circling while he hunts whoever is murdering powerful people around TunFaire’s elite hill.

Closing out the Dread Empire saga, this volume picks up after continent-shaking wars as old survivors, betrayed kings, and divine pawns reckon with the Deliverer’s march and a final confrontation that makes every human scheme look small.

A collection of fourteen stand-alone stories ranging from near-future America to secondary worlds and strange seas, exploring soldiers, con artists, haunted sailors, and families in trouble, each piece offering a different angle on Cook’s mix of grit and wonder.

Garrett’s quiet life in TunFaire ends when he is hired to protect a cluster of young heirs marked for death in a lethal magical contest, forcing him and the Dead Man to untangle god-level politics, old grudges, and a killer who always seems one move ahead.

The final Instrumentalities of the Night novel sees Piper Hecht caught between fading gods, ruthless churches, and collapsing empires, trying to keep his friends and family alive while the last great moves in a centuries-long holy war play out around him.

An interquel set between The Black Company and Shadows Linger, this novel finds Croaker and the Company stationed in a murky garrison town, dealing with missing memories, a hidden fortress, and enemies who may have already rewritten part of their history.

An omnibus of the final Dread Empire trilogy—Reap the East Wind, An Ill Fate Marshalling, and A Path to Coldness of Heart—following King Bragi Ragnarson, desert prophet El Murid’s legacy, and a vengeful god’s Deliverer as wars and sorcery reshape the world.

Eighteen of Cook’s strongest short works, chosen and introduced by the author, spanning Black Company tales, Dread Empire pieces, and rare stand-alones that showcase his knack for tight storytelling and ground-level looks at extraordinary events.

First book in the new A Pitiless Rain arc of the Black Company, Lies Weeping follows the Company’s retreat to its former refuge in Hsien, where Arkana and Shukrat take over the Annals, Lady regains power in unsettling ways, and Croaker watches as a distant god.